1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains generally to enterprise computer systems, embedded computer systems, and computer systems in general, and more particularly to methods, systems and procedures for providing high availability service and automatic fault detection and recovery for computer applications.
2. Description of Related Art
High Availability (HA) for complex computer applications is a non-negotiable requirement for the Internet, corporate data centers, financial services, telecommunications, government systems and medical systems. At the same time, the effort involved in actually achieving such availability and reliability can be one of the most expensive and time-consuming aspects of application development and can even cause delay in deploying an application. Typically, High Availability is provided through custom applications, custom operating systems or custom hardware, all of which are expensive and proprietary.
Therefore, there is a need for methods, systems and procedures for achieving high availability and reliability through a transparent and automatic software infrastructure, rather than through prolonged custom coding, lengthy development time and substantial expenditure.